I've never been...was thinking Y2play...circumstances have left me with no vehicle the past couple of years...

Right now...I head up to whistler with my friends or cypress...whenever someone is willing to drive me...but the Y2Play is so cheap...and it gives me the option of heading up after work since its the closest mountain for me...but I've never been...so before I shell out 4 browns...just wanted to see if I can get a few chimes of the mountain....

Me: Got my CASI few years back at seymour, boarding for 8 years...learning to ski this season to mix it up...

What Legally said about transit-friendly is going to be the determining factor for you. For Seymour, you have to pay the Seymour shuttle ($6 each way) from Parkgate Village to the mountain. For Cypress, there's a Greyhound-style shuttle from Lonsdale Quay, which is $23 round-trip. With Grouse, you can take public transit right to the base of the gondola.

Several of my friends have Y2Play passes at Grouse, and they are unanimous that going during the day on weekends is a waste of time. You'll spend all your time standing in the line-up. Get there for opening, ski for a few hours, go home. Come back around dinner.

The runs, compared to Seymour, are longer but are generally flat (side-to-side), wide, and featureless. Very difficult to find side hits and such. Grouse has much harder black-diamond runs than Seymour, with a ton of moguls. They have a better beginner park than Seymour, but I don't think they put as much effort into the intermediate/advanced stuff.

If you're taking transit, this won't affect you, but if you drive and park, the gondola means you have to take everything up with you that you'll need for the day. Sure you can go down the gondola, go to your car, then go back up, but that's a lot of time and effort.

The Y2Play is a bit more expensive than the Seymour pass (if you buy in September). If you really want to do Seymour, you can buy a season shuttle pass which is about $160 IIRC. It may more or less work out as a wash (I buy family pass, so if you're buying an individual pass that may not be true). Depending on how far you have to go, this could make the commute unreasonably long. However, the bus that goes up to Grouse kind of meanders through North Van, so it's not a lot of difference in total time between Grouse and Seymour.

This is my second year with a Y2play pass and I'm going to purchase one for next season as well. It's right in between Cypress and Seymour in terms of size. I basically like going up there to practice and ride with a couple of friends, and go to Cypress or Whistler when we have a bigger group. I tend to disagree with Donutz on a couple of things. There are plenty of fun runs with natural features if you get to know the mountain a bit more, and as for lift wait times on the weekend, which local mountain doesn't? I've boarded enough at all 3 local mountains, and I would have to say that Seymour has the longest lift waits of them all, because of the out-dated 2 man chair lifts. Not to take anything from Mt. Seymour though, because they do have one of the coolest terrain parks. As for the gondola, it's perfect for someone who doesn't like having to drive up the mountain when the heavy snow hits. I can drive to the base where it's raining, hop on the gondola and in 8 mins, have all that rain turn into some good ol' white stuff.

I've boarded enough at all 3 local mountains, and I would have to say that Seymour has the longest lift waits of them all, because of the out-dated 2 man chair lifts.

Habba-whaaaa??? Understand, I haven't been to Grouse in literally decades on a weekend, so I'm just taking my friends' word on this, but they're talking about 3/4 hour waits being normal for most of the day after about 11am. In contrast, the longest line-up I've ever timed on Seymour (other than xmas break) was 25 minutes, and that was unusual. Seymour line-ups between 11:30 and about 2:30 are up to 20 minutes or so, but that's about it. The real problem with the old crappy chairs is the amount of time it takes to get to the top, plus the fact they have to stop or slow down the chairs a lot because of beginners (with the high-speed quads, there's no real issue with loading/unloading).

I agree with you about the gondola, and the OP is not driving so the transit situation is even more important. But I really like going to my car whenever I feel like it. Cypress is good for that too.

Agreed you can find fun stuff anywhere, and Paper Trail in particular is great, but you have to work a little harder to find them on Grouse & Cypress. The feel on Seymour IMO is more like the first time I went to Manning. Like Seymour, the amount of "finishing" is minimal so the runs have a lot of bumpy-bits along the sides. First time down any given run you can find plenty of interesting stuff.

I'll tell you one thing that really pisses me off about Seymour that isn't an issue with the other two mtns, is pedestrians. Seymour crew don't really put any effort into shooing out non-skiers, so you get a lot of parents walking around helping their kids, and even a lot of people with sleds and snowshoes on the runs. Had one family last year start building a snowperson right in the middle of a side-hit landing area on Goldie. 'Course that turned out to be kind of fun as snowboarders started aiming for it

grouse is a decent mountain and the Y2play pass is an excellent value. If you want you can purchase both an seymour and a grouse pass for 600 dollars, that will give you variety if you so desire and sometimes seymour is getting snow when grouse is getting rained on due to higher elevation. I would defiantly get it if you plan on heading up there after work for a few runs several times a week. The only reason i don't have one myself this year is because i missed it.

Seymour is getting a high speed quad chairlift in next season so next year it will be better